One of the victims was a British woman resident of Alicante. The Valencia Health Service is reported to be investigating whether the death of two women in the region was due to the British variant of Creutzfelt-Jabob, or mad cow disease.

The first case is of a 64 year old pensioner from Valencia and the second a British woman living in Alicante.

First reports indicate that a genetic mutation was the more likely cause of the disease in both cases, and not the consumption of contaminated meat.

In Spain there has been only three human cases of mad cow disease, one in Madrid and two in Castilla-León.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_17495.shtml

10 people killed by new CJD-like disease

Public release date: 9-Jul-2008

Since Gambetti's team wrote a paper describing an initial 11 cases referred to his centre between 2002 and 2006 (Annals of Neurology, vol 63, p 697), another five have come to light. "So it is possible that it could be just the tip of the iceberg," Gambetti says.